Islamization of Europe: You Can’t Combine Sharia with European Culture

A Muslim journalist Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas interviews the founders of Euroislam.pl – the most popular Polish website critical of Islam – about the Islamization of Europe

Have you got many supporters?

Grzegorz Lindenberg: 90 percent of the Polish society.

Jan Wójcik: We have 7 thousand “likes” on Facebook, which is nothing compared to, for example,
“NO to Islamization of Europe” with 200 thousand “likes”. This organization is linked to the National Front. We do not cooperate with them.

Piotr Ślusarczyk: We don’t do it for money. We warn. In the face of a huge problem, Europe has been keeping its eyes shut for decades now.

What problem?

PŚ: Progressing Islamization of Europe. Nobody tries to solve this problem. There is no reasonable plan how to protect Europe against the political Islam and its totalitarian ideology, there is, however, only the acceptance of the mass immigration. We talk about the threat of Islamization from the perspective of humanistic universalism, human rights, equality of sexes and democracy. Otherwise extreme right will do it, which is actually already happening.

Piotr, you said once that „in Islam there is a God, who blesses the conquest”. Is the God of Islam the God of war?

PŚ: Islam as a private spiritual development is not an issue. There are Muslims who use Koran for prayers only, but also those who use it for violence. We fight against the latter kind. The God of conquest is the God of extremists.

How many Muslims believe in this God of war?

PŚ: According to prof. Koopmans from the Berlin Social Science Center latest research, in the Western Muslim communities a half of believers turn towards the religious fundamentalism. The half of European Muslim population choose sharia. Furthermore, one fourth support violence in case Islam is threatened.

JW: 70 per cent from this half additionally declare hatred towards the West, Jews and homosexuals.

Grzegorz, in one of the interviews you said that „in order to understand the nature of Islamic terrorism it’s enough to read the Koran”. Strong words.

GL: Absolutely. In order to understand the nature of Islamic terrorism it’s enough to read the Koran, which does not mean that everybody who reads this book necessarily becomes a terrorist.

Is terrorism inspired by the Koran?

GL: Yes, in many verses.

For instance?

GL: Amongst over a hundred verses inciting to violence, we can take an example from „The Spoils”, verse 64 „It is not for a prophet to take prisoners before he has subdued the land”.

How does Islamization progress in Europe?

PŚ: There are teachers in France, who, in the name of political correctness, at schools with a number of Muslim youth drop lessons about the Holocaust, Darwinism, ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. Islamists cynically use democratic tools to introduce undemocratic rules. They introduce sharia patrols, promote Salafi ideas, demand sharia rulings in some matters – all of which under the cover of religious freedom. Agata Bielik-Robson calls it „the strategy of cheating the liberal”. This means using liberties while not believing in freedom.

What mistakes has Europe made in the process of the post-war integration and assimilation of Muslims?

JW: Integration and assimilation were not emphasized, while the biggest mistake was propagation of the multicultural model instead. Hate preachers have been tolerated for decades, anti-Western hatred has been tolerated at schools with immigrant minorities. Multikulti failed.

Islam won’t go hand in hand with the democracy?

PŚ: Islam and Europe, these are two different cultural models. It is not possible to respect two contradictory principles within a single social sphere: religious totalitarianism and lay freedom. Sharia is irreconcilable with the European culture and civilization. Its basic dogmas are directly contradictory to human rights.

Aren’t you using the traditional Polish Antisemitism to channel it against Muslims? Isn’t Polish well researched xenophobia your ally?

PŚ: No. We are not the Polish Defense Leagues, who refuse to cooperate with Jews. We are not the “No to Islamization of Europe” who are linked to the National Front. Those are the places where one can find emotions you have just mentioned.

We criticize Islam from the perspective of enlightened reason, not nationalism. This is true, however, that many believe we are being sponsored by Israel, Mossad, or that we are Christian fascists.

So who are you financed by?

PŚ: Our readers make small donations. We also get some money from friends. The majority of work has been done by volunteers so no huge funds have been required. Furthermore, we are all professionally active in our jobs.

You distance yourselves from hatred, still comments under your articles are often full of insults, frequently of the “Poland for Poles only” kind. Your readers insult Islam and its values. Pakis, Islamic pest, goat shaggers. You don’t delete it. I followed the comments, they’re there all the time.

JW: If it is really the case, then it’s not good, it’s our mistake. We keep on trying to remove posts full of hatred, but leave the criticism. Hate in the Internet is a problem of even the biggest websites.

Aren’t they your “useful idiots”? All these “Great Poles” with Celtic crosses, swords and Hussar wings. Skinheads, Fronda readers, nationalists of all sorts… They support you.

JW: But what kind of support is that: when we were organizing a rally only a few of them showed up. Fronda and nationalists invited us to cooperate – we refused.

Are you afraid of the mosque in Ochota, Warsaw?

PŚ: No, it’s not a matter of fear. This is the matter of a rational reasoning. We do not want Muslim fundamentalists to grow in strength in Poland. The Polish Muslim League is linked to Muslim Brotherhood.

A serious accusation again…

JW: Muslim Association for Cultural Education is a member of FIOE (Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe). Members of the Association are or have been active there. They are supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

PŚ: The mosque is financed by Kuwait Wahabis and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is not our discovery, it’s a public information. They do not support the liberal Islam. This is a threat to Poland, a threat of totalitarianism and fundamentalism.

Pork was thrown at the already open mosque. Many Muslims felt offended. Is that how you want to fight Islamization of Europe?

JW: Quite opposite, for many years we have been trying to reduce in our articles nonsense made up about Islam like “the pig will stop the mosque”.

But when German football fans clash with Salafis, whose side do you take?

JW: Nobody’s. We have been warning for a long time that if state institutions don’t deal with Salafism, we will have a war of the extreme right against fundamentalists on our streets.

PŚ: The football radical right is as dangerous as the extreme Islam. You can’t fight plague with cholera.

What’s wrong with the Polish Muslim League? You mentioned their links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Piotr, you wrote about “a strong ideological influence of the Brotherhood on the League”. Jan, you say that “the authority of the League is Yusuf al-Qaradawi – an Egyptian radical preacher”. You wrote that “the League associates publish in Polish the fundamentalist literature”. Whose books are they?

JW: Sayyid Qutib (Egiptian main ideologist of the Muslim Brotherhood), Abdul A’la Maudud (Pakistani radical preacher, founder of the fundamentalist organisation Jama al Islamiya) and a few less known authors.

What do they write about?

PŚ: My “favorite” quotation from Qutub is the following: “Human rights and freedoms guaranteed by the American Constitution are Satan planted seeds in the garden of human soul”. In the foreword from the Polish publishers it reads: May Qutub’s thoughts enlighten minds of Muslims”. We are talking about such kind of books.

JW: Maududi says that “the Jihad is the foremost action on the path of Allah, even if it requires a sacrifice of a few thousand human lives”.

PŚ: It is only due to our activity it became known that such books are being published in Poland. Journalists are hardly interested. I was even mistaken for an influential activist of the conservative Christian Polish Families’ League as we have a similar surname. The journalist didn’t even bother to check it, even though when that party was in power I was a journalist at the Tok FM. When you criticize the political Islam from the liberal and democratic perspective, you don’t find many allies in Poland. Being people with liberal views, we are seen by the right as a part of that spoiled world, which supports the alliance of gays and feminists, whereas the left thinks we’re abject racists.

Jan, you say that “the League employs preachers from foreign cultures, who can’t even speak our language”. The majority of imams in Poland come from the Arab countries. What’s wrong about it?

JW: France and German have recently introduced a requirement for imams to learn French and German. That’s a part of integration. Poland apparently decided to copy their former mistakes as the Ochota mosque imam arrived in Poland only a year ago and can’t speak Polish.

Are there supporters of the so called Islamic State in Poland?

JW: Yes, there are. Security forces can confirm that. National Security Agency know about the increased activity of organisations linked to FIOE and Muslim Brotherhood. They inform about it on their webpage.

A British Muslim missionary organization Mission Dawah arrived in Poland and preaches Islam. Is it bad?

JW: These people shouldn’t be here. They preach Salafism and fundamentalism. A report of ex-Muslims in the UK provides enough evidence for that.

PŚ: It was a mistake to invite radicals from the Mission Dawah to mosque run by the Polish Tatars, who have nothing to do with radicalism. The results came quickly – Mission Dawah recently wrote online that they will take over power in Europe, including Poland, rather with peaceful methods, and not like terrorists with violence.

Let’s talk about the immigration, which you oppose so fervently. Europe is getting old, there’s no children. Africa and Asia have a great surplus of people – frustrated, uneducated, with no perspectives in their often repressive countries. They will keep on coming to Europe, nothing will stop them. Isn’t it better to build bridges? Are you building bridges?

GL: No, we are not. What kind and how many immigrants will be accepted is a political decision of the EU and respective countries. The fact that Europe is getting old is not a calamity. We don’t need to be so many, in the next 15-20 years a great deal of economy will be run by computers, and we don’t need millions of illiterate Africans for that purpose. Millions of Muslim immigrants even in the second generation contribute nothing to the development of European thought.

Thousands of people arrive in Europe on leaky boats, they die, they drown. Are we supposed to not help them?

GL: Help yes, accept no. Save life, cure, feed and send back home. Over half of them are economic immigrants.

PŚ: We know the Australian model. An extensive help should be sent to the African countries and we should systematically improve life conditions of the people there so that they do not escape to Europe. Europe can support and sustain refugee centers in Arab countries for example.

GL: Exactly. Why rich Gulf countries accept no Muslim refugees? They have both funds and space for it.

Prof. Wolniewicz said that immigrants on boats should be sunk…

GL: Nonsense. So much about prof. Wolniewicz.

JW: Europe in a way invites these immigrants by creating convenient conditions for accepting them. Refugees should not be encouraged to sail over to Europe as it only fuels the crime industry associated with human trafficking. All this debate is absurd. We are presented with a choice: drown or accept, which are not the only two alternatives.

GL: This is de facto indirect financing of gangs, ISIS, fundamentalists. Islamic State not only smuggles their people to Europe, but also benefits financially from the trafficking. We can manage a million refugees, but we won’t manage ten million, who encouraged by the easiness of resettlement in Europe and achieving asylum will keep on arriving in the following years. How many can we accept, when can we say enough?

Still you support accepting Syrian Christians. But you don’t want Syrian Muslims.

GL: Arab Christians are suppressed and murdered in the Middle East by Muslims. Furthermore, they assimilate much easier. Their life-stories in Europe prove that.

On your website you claim that Islamic State, terrorism, jihadism are actually “the real Islam”, whereas Muslim liberals and democrats are not “the real Muslims”. Terrorists and fundamentalists say the same about them.

PŚ: I really wish that the mainstream Islam were Muslim liberals accepting the equality of sexes and religions, respecting democratic values – unfortunately that is not the case.

What should the Muslim League declare to calm down Poles concerned about building the mosque in Warsaw?

PŚ: They should acknowledge and publicly declare that all verses in Koran that are contradictory to democracy and human rights are invalid.

Which verses are these?

PŚ: All the so called “sword verses” and those about attacking infidels, bloody punishments, violence against women or sexual minorities.

Are human rights and democracy a European invention? Can’t those ideas be reconciled with Islam? Have Muslims got no other option than para-religious, pseudo-secular dictatorships or sharia?

PŚ: There are Muslim liberal thinkers but their ideas are suppressed or refused by the vast majority of Muslims. These groups are tiny, weak and persecuted. Muslim liberals have not created any influential front, party or organization which would openly and loudly oppose oppressiveness and backwardness of their religion. Quite opposite, the recent years have noted a return to fundamentalism.

Why did you oppose inviting representatives of the Muslim League to the Museum Of Jewish History in Warsaw? That’s a beautiful sign isn’t it?

PŚ: The former president of the League Samir Ismail talking to the Catholic Information Agency referred to Yusuf al-Qaradawi as an authority. Somebody representing an organisation whose role models are Islamist radicals calling the Holocaust the God’s punishment, a “Jewish scourge” and glorify Hitler, should not enter this museum.

Who are the Muslim League? Poles or foreigners?

PŚ: Foreigners. This organization emerged as an opposition to the Polish Tatars’ Muslim Religious Association. The league’s mufti Nidal Abu Tabaq openly negates equality of men and women, while in his preaches he suggests actions in Egypt and Syria, which would be penalized in Poland, which can be understood in a number of ways. This organization supports Muslim Brotherhood.

Grzegorz, you say you fear „dismantling European liberal democracy” by Islamists. Is it really happening?

GL: Of course. The fact that many liberal Muslims and European critics of Islam had to leave to the USA because they were not safe in Europe. Many did not manage as they were killed by Islamists. Bassam Tibi left, Ayan Hirsi Ali left, editors of Charlie Hebdo did not manage, Theo van Gogh did not manage, the list is long.

Islamic activists employ various means to slowly but consequently limit the freedom of speech in Europe. Salman Rushdie in his biography wrote how much West pressed him to admit having made a mistake by writing „The Satanic Verses”. You can make a simple test: ask writers if they agreed to write an anti-Catholic and anti-Islamic books. The answer is simple: they would write the former, but wouldn’t write the latter.

Is political correctness a European weakness?

JW: Ibn Khaldoun (Middle Ages’ Arab philosopher and sociologist) wrote already in the 14th century that when civilizations negate themselves it marks the beginning of their ending. That’s exactly what we are doing in Europe.

What is this negation about?

PŚ: We ourselves question the blessings of our civilization: freedom of speech, religious freedom, women rights, sexual freedom. Islamists hate these values and rave in ecstasy when we ourselves negate them. Ayaan Hirshi Ali accused the Dutch government of hiding Islamic violence against women in Holland, such as FGM, merely in the name of the political correctness. In the Great Britain the scale of FGM is enormous. Only recently have the authorities undertaken actions to fight it. Muslims begin to impose on us what is allowed and what is not. If I want to draw Muhammad’s picture I have the right to do it – nobody can forbid it to me. Still, the majority of newspapers were too afraid to publish them. They feared Islamists. In their own countries. That’s a horror.

Who influences the Polish media in terms of the political correctness in reference to Muslims?

PŚ: They themselves do it. They are motivated by the political correctness.

GL: The idea that nobody can feel offended.

Can they offend?

GL: Yes, they can. They even should. Those who negate human rights and freedoms should be offended.

JW: In 2006 the European Council introduced the law that the freedom of speech makes it legal to offend individual persons, or even whole groups of people as this freedom is more important and more precious than their hurt feelings. Political correctness, especially in case of the media, is trying to limit this freedom.

Jan, on your Facebook profile there is a recording of Friday sermon in the Warsaw mosque in which the imam with his broken Polish glorifies the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Where did you get it from? Have you got your people in the mosque?

JW: Not really, the imam put it online himself. He isn’t apparently afraid of the Polish authorities. He simply says what he thinks.

Are you the ones who put anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant posters in the streets of Polish cities depicting toothless, bearded jihadists with Kalashnikovs?

PŚ: Yes, that’s us. When you are writing a report and you want to attract some media attention you don’t get much response. When you put a poster, journalists begin to write about the problem. The poster is terrible and that’s what it was meant to be. Only when various politically correct activists buzzed, media started talking about these posters and our protest against the uncontrolled wave of immigration.

GL: The poster is clear and blunt. It says that ISIS smuggle terrorists to Europe by hiding them among immigrants. It doesn’t say that all immigrants are potential terrorists.

What the Europe’s future should be like?

GL: Democratic and free. Which conflicts with the mass immigration of Muslims into Europe.